PARSONS REMEMBEREDMembers of the Parsons Family Association gather at a new tombstone
unveiled yesterday at the Bridge Street Cemetery
in Northampton, MA. The monument, inscribed with
the names of relatives, commemorates those buried in the cemetery, of which
there are more than 100.

The sandstone slab that marks Joseph Parsons' grave in the Bridge Street
Cemetery is blasted by time and weather. One of the first residents of
Northampton, Parsons was also one of the first to be interred in this cemetery.

Although the winged death skull that characterized the tombstones of Puritans
such as Parsons is still visible above the chiseled letters, year by year
the grooves in the stone grow shallower and duller.

All around his resting place, the grave markers of Parsons' relatives are
facing a similar fate, their names and memories slowly fading under the
assault of time.

Yesterday, a crowd of flesh and blood Parsons made a pilgrimage to the
cemetery where more than 100 of their ancestors are buried to make sure
their forebears will not be forgotten.

As about 30 family members, including the 18th and youngest generation
of Parsons in America, looked on, the Parsons Family Association unveiled
a new granite tombstone commemorating Joseph Parsons, his wife, Elizabeth
Strong Parsons, and their other brethren at Bridge Street.

Parsons was the indisputable theme of the day as family members from all
over New England and New York journeyed to Northampton for the landmark
event.

Conceived by Josiah Parsons, a Northampton resident who died in 1988, the
$8,000 memorial was a tribute not only to one of the pioneering families
of Western Massachusetts but also to family ties across the centuries.

Through the years, the Parsons family has boasted a number of well-known
Americans, including Elizabeth Truman, the wife of President Harry S. Truman,
Captain William Parsons, who armed the atomic bomb that was dropped on
Hiroshima while in flight, an actor named Marion Morrison, whose grandmother
was Weltha Parsons, better known to most people as John Wayne.

Waiter S. Dayton Jr., a retired builder from Long Island, is known as "Duke"
to his relatives. Yesterday, however, Dayton harkened to his great-grandmother,
a Parsons, for his identity. "We're all Parsons around here,"
Dayton said. "If you say 'Mr. Parsons,' you're in trouble. The woods
are full of us."

Dayton;. 65, recalled walking through the cemetery with Josiah, who lived
across the street, during one of the annual family gatherings a few years
ago. Josiah pointed out the deteriorating tombstones and explained his
dream of immortalizing their brethren in granite.

Although they are not buried at Bridge Street, family patriarch Cornet
Joseph Parsons and his wife, Mary Bliss Parsons, are also remembered on
the stone. Born in 1620 in Beaminister, England, a Puritan stronghold.
Cornet Joseph arrived in Northampton in 1654 and was one of the town's
founders.

According to family Historian Gerald Parsons, a retired librarian from
Syracuse, NY., Ebenezer Parsons, son of Cornet Joseph and Mary Bliss, was
the first child born in the new settlement.

Some early settlers accused Mary Bliss Parsons of practicing in witchcraft
and the family moved to Boston where she was tried and acquitted, Gerald
Parsons said.

The first family ended up in Springfield where they were eventually buried
in a cemetery on Elm Street. That cemetery was torn up in 1848. However,
to make way for the Hartford to Springfield Railroad, all the bodies there
were reinterred in a common grave in the Springfield City Cemetery. Hence
the decision to include the couple on the Bridge Street Cemetery stone.

"This is the best we can do." Gerald said. "And it's appropriate
since Joseph was one of the founders of Northampton."

During the unveiling ceremony, Mayor David B. Musante, Jr., who presented
a citation to the Parsons Family Association from the City Council, quipped,
"Its really a miracle this city wasn't named Parsonsville after listening
to this history."

Local historian James Parsons, amazingly no relation to the other Parsons,
read a poem about the family by the late Kitty Parsons Recchia. The gathering
then retired to the Whale Inn in Goshen where Springfield Union-News Associate
Publisher Richard C. Garvey regaled the Family with tales of some of the
non-Parsons buried at Bridge Street, among whom are four pre-Civil War
U.S. Senators.